The Seville Marathon runs in February - typically the last Sunday of the month - on a course that is almost pathologically flat. February in Andalusia is between winter and spring: the orange trees on the Avenida de la Constitucion are heavy with bitter Seville oranges, and the daytime temperature sits at 14 to 18°C.
The high-speed rail infrastructure of Andalusia is built around Seville as a hub. The AVE to Cordoba takes 40 minutes. The connection south to Jerez takes 75 minutes. This gives you the two most historically distinctive cities in the Guadalquivir corridor - one the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba, the other the capital of the global sherry trade - in four days of rail travel and slow walking.
Nights One and Two: Cordoba
The AVE from Seville Santa Justa to Cordoba takes exactly 40 minutes. Buy tickets in advance at Renfe; fares are around €15 to 25 single. Cordoba station is 1.5 kilometres northwest of the historic centre; the No. 3 bus or a taxi reaches the Mezquita in 10 minutes.
Cordoba was at its Caliphate peak under Abd al-Rahman III (912 to 961) a city of 500,000 people - the largest city in Europe at the time. The physical evidence of this scale is concentrated in the Mezquita-Catedral de Cordoba: a mosque begun in 785 and expanded repeatedly, creating a hypostyle hall of 856 columns in 35 rows, topped by striped red-and-white horseshoe arches. A Christian cathedral was built inside the mosque after the Reconquista, an architectural intervention that Charles V is reported to have regretted when he saw the result. The site is flat throughout. Entry is approximately €13.
The Juderia surrounds the Mezquita on three sides - whitewashed lanes with geraniums on iron grilles. The Alcazar de los Reyes Cristianos (Castle of the Christian Monarchs) has formal Moorish-influenced water gardens with long rectangular pools and orange trees; largely flat and open Tuesday to Sunday.
February in Cordoba: Ideal. The city is not yet in spring tourist mode - the Easter Semana Santa and the Patios de Cordoba festival (May) are still months away. The city is operating for its 325,000 residents.
Where to stay: The Hotel Hospes Palacio del Bailio is built within a 16th-century palace with Roman ruins visible beneath glass floors - at February prices, somewhat more accessible than in high season.
Where to eat: Casa Mazal in the Juderia serves Sephardic-influenced Andalusian cooking - the dishes of the Jewish community as reconstructed from historical sources. El Churrasco on Calle Romero is the classic Cordoba restaurant for rabo de toro (braised oxtail) and salmorejo.
Nights Three and Four: Jerez de la Frontera
The AVE and regional trains connect Cordoba to Jerez in approximately 1 hour 15 minutes via Seville. Jerez station is a short taxi from the sherry bodegas and the historic centre.
Jerez de la Frontera (250,000 people) is the capital of the Marco de Jerez - the defined sherry-producing zone in the province of Cadiz. Sherry (vino de Jerez) is a fortified wine produced only here, in a triangle of towns (Jerez, Sanlucar de Barrameda, El Puerto de Santa Maria) and aged using the solera system, in which new wine is blended into older wine in a descending series of barrels, ensuring consistency and complexity.
The major sherry houses - Gonzalez Byass (Tio Pepe), Bodegas Tradicion, Osborne, Williams and Humbert - all offer guided tours of their bodegas, covering the solera system, the aging warehouses (called catedrales by the workers, for their size and the quality of light that comes through the high windows), and the tasting. Tours cost approximately €15 to 25 depending on the house and the tasting included; book in advance, particularly for Gonzalez Byass, which is the most popular.
The Barrio de Santiago - the old flamenco quarter of Jerez, immediately north of the historic centre - is where the peñas flamencos (private flamenco clubs) are concentrated. Jerez is considered one of the birthplaces of flamenco, and the style associated with the city (siguiriyas and solea) is considered among the most serious and formally demanding. Several peñas hold performances that are not tourist shows - ask at your hotel for current schedules, as these are not systematically publicised.
The Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre (Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art) on Avenida Duque de Abrantes offers public performances and training sessions (check the current schedule at realescuela.org). The school's famous white Carthusian horses are the specific equestrian tradition of Jerez; the training sessions are more instructive than the public shows.
Where to stay: The Hotel Palacio Garvey in the historic centre is the most atmospheric option - a converted 19th-century palace.
Where to eat: Mantua on Calle Caballos is the current Jerez fine-dining benchmark, with a tasting menu that pairs each course with a specific sherry style - fino, manzanilla, amontillado, oloroso, palo cortado - in a sequence that demonstrates the wine's range.
Getting Home
Jerez Airport (XRY) is 10 kilometres from the city centre, accessible by taxi (approximately €15). The airport serves London (Ryanair and Vueling), Frankfurt, Brussels, and several Spanish domestic routes. Alternatively, the return train to Seville takes approximately 55 minutes, with connections from Seville Airport (SVQ) or the wider AVE network.